In some ways it's an excellent foundation, the size of the world and the detail put into it is excellent and despite some misgivings i have even the enemy placement is smart it's rare that you'll find a lynel near a talus or hinox, the art direction of the game was damned good too, i personally love just watching the sky ontop of the gerudo highlands or on the plateau, why? because my god is it nice to actually see a good star sphere. WW had a good one as well in my books.
The level of collectibles i did like for the most part but they did go overboard by alot with koroks which isn't great but hey hey had to fill the world with something.......right?
In other ways it was really bad there was virtually no plot and only existed through sporadic moments that relied on you slaying the 4 bosses of the beasts or finding photos.
The Divine beast dungeons were lackluster, i like the idea behind them and in some (naboris, ruta) The method of progression was damned cool and rather clever, requiring some common sense and skill, but the designs in the dungeons bored me to tears personally, other dungeons were just lame as hell requiring you to shift the entire beast to go through the place.
in terms of world building the game well and truly failed at building a populace or even any threat to them, aside from the odd traveller the people are literally going around with no fear of the giant mutant purple cloud surrounding the throne of the kingdom, the town folk feel generic and just stock models, and the towns themselves.......for such a large world often feel small. The only place i felt that was really unique and breath taking was zora's domain aside from that i just lost interest in the towns and hated revisting.. For comparison i still frequently visit zoras domain and i've only been to rito town just enough to finish the shrines in the area and that's it.
The variety of enemies in the game are uninteresting and repetitive, the only variation is in strength, gear,color and health, no special skills or abilities nothing to really set them apart and make em memorable, they are just as easy to kill at their strongest as they are at their weakest. personally i'd rather see a weak ass moblin that can throw literal ice around than a golden moblin that just hits you with a club.
Finally quest rewards in the next game this massively needs to pick up, take a few notes from MM where any quest reward you got was actually useful to and not just a crappy medal sitting there doing nothing.